Brian O’Driscoll lauds ‘super impressive’ Fin Smith - ‘In the conversation to start at 10 for England’

Brian O’Driscoll believes Northampton Saints’ Fin Smith should “absolutely be in the conversation to start at 10 for England” with George Ford and Marcus Smith.

Smith upstaged England’s former talisman Owen Farrell as Northampton ran in five tries to beat Saracens 41-30 at Franklin’s Gardens and increase their lead at the top of the Gallagher Premiership to seven points.

The 21-year-old was sublime from start to finish and rightly received the player of the match award.

Almost without fail, he seemed to pick the right option and execute throughout a pulsating 80 minutes that saw Saints bounce back from a thumping loss to Bristol Bears last week.

Smith put Alex Coles in to open the scoring in the fifth minute and set up James Ramm for his second shortly after the break, both of which were crucial for establishing momentum at the start of each half.

He completed a trio of assists when his perfectly timed pass sent Tommy Freeman through a hole, while he was also perfect from the tee in slotting five conversions and two penalties.

After making his Test debut during the Six Nations, TNT Sports expert O’Driscoll has tipped Smith to push on and nail down a starting place in head coach Steve Borthwick’s side.

“Talk is cheap but the delivery he put in was brilliant,” O’Driscoll said on TNT Sports. “Obviously he had a great platform but I thought Fin Smith was comfortably the player of the match.

“His timing of passing, shot selection, his kicking when necessitated, his defensive side which isn’t lauded as much, I just thought he had the full package today.

“There’s so much conversation around George Ford and Marcus Smith; for me this guy is absolutely in the conversation to start at 10 for England in the coming years.

“It just like he’s got that perfect game that’s suited to international rugby but I think he has a little bit more understanding of space than I gave him credit for. And he’s still super young.

“The performance over at Munster a few months ago and the performance here today bouncing back from disappointment last week - super impressive.”

O’Driscoll, an Irish rugby legend, also lauded the way Northampton recovered from shipping more than 50 points to Bristol seven days ago.

“It wasn't any one thing, it was all the components coming together,” he added. “But it's funny what a bit of attitude does, a bit of know-how and a bit of directness, the rest of your game tends to evolve.

“Obviously, you've got to get your set-piece right, you’ve got to your get your defensive systems right. But if you go in with a mindset of not being tackled, you get soft shoulders, you create opportunities for offloads, and that's where you get those one-on-ones, those mismatches that they picked off throughout the 80 minutes.

“As much as it was nip and tuck at times and Sarries were kind of hanging in there with some of those block-down tries, it was full value for that Saints victory. They were very, very impressive to a man.”

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